Lady of the Black Sand
by Can'tScreamMyselfAwake
Summary: Harnessing the energy of the dark multiverse, Mozenrath imports a woman from 2019 to help him defeat his nemesis. After savagely engaging Agrabah, the woman now called the Queen of the Land of the Black Sand is shocked to discover that Mozenrath has a twin brother - a brother who is routinely featured on the wrong side of the Justice League.
1. Chapter One

Nothing moved of its own accord in the Land of the Black Sand. Even the coal-black sand restrained its tiniest specks from the whorls of the occasional drafts that blew across the dunes. So on the night Mozenrath cast what he thought at the time might be the last spell he would ever cast, the resulting seismic disruptions were felt in Agrabah and the violent blue flares as the sky itself cracked open were visible from the Princess Jasmine's own personal balcony. The earthquake would have thrown the princess to the floor had she not seized a marble pillar, hugging herself against the cool stone while glasses shattered and tea pooled around her feet, staining her silk slippers. She instinctively glanced up in the direction of the Land of the Black Sand in time to see the perpetually hovering black clouds tear apart, and she closed her eyes against the blinding glare of the thunderous sheets of electricity that seemed to explode from the very air itself. The image flashed on her eyelids, blazing blue and crackling with power. In her mind, she saw a bolt of silk gently waving in a warm spring breeze, suddenly ripped straight down the middle by cruel hands. _The fabric of the universe has been torn_, she thought illogically as the ground steadied beneath her and she stepped shakily over the rapidly cooling tea to the balcony. She gripped the rail, somehow surprised to find the marble still comfortingly firm beneath her. A door crashed open behind her, and she heard voices calling her name, but Jasmine didn't turn from the balcony. The clouds over the Land of the Black Sand had knitted back together, the sand seemed to have quietened, but there was something about the subsequent silence that disturbed her even more than the earthquake and the sudden jolt of lightening. It was a silence made heavy; heavy with presence. A foreign, alien presence.

"He's done something truly terrible this time," she said quietly.

Mozenrath stared down at the prone form of the woman on the sand before him. His lips parted in an O of surprise. He had not expected it to work. He was weak, and he'd become weaker still preparing for this spell. This had been the final roll of the dice. Not a gambler, Mozenrath resented that his life's work and his planning had come down to this, the random toss of a many-sided cosmic die. And he hadn't expected luck to favour him. Fortune had seemingly deserted him these past few years, and these spells could very easily go terribly, terribly wrong, but the chances of this exact scenario occurring were infinitesimally small. He shook his head, feeling a lock of black hair loosen from his turban and cascade down his cheek.

Surely he was mistaken.

He had considered trying this spell before. Many times before, actually, but all throughout the terrible confrontations with the street rat and then throughout the ragged urchin's ascension to the highest position of power in the seven deserts, he had waited. He had waited for the right time, knowing as the years passed that even the right time might not produce the result he so desperately needed. It was when he had at last hit rock bottom that he'd realised that there would never be a right time.

But the spell had worked. The most famous woman his world had ever known was back.

"Master like?" Xerxes enquired, unused to long periods of bewildered silence from Mozenrath and eager to put an end to the growing discomfort of silence.

"New girl pretty," the eel prompted. She was. Still, Mozenrath made no response as he gazed down at the still figure on the iron-black sand. The girl's hair was ridiculously long and voluminous; a deep brown, almost black, with a red-tinged spray that framed her body and, when she stood, would hang below her tiny waist. Her skin was as fair as his, despite the fact that she had been drawn from a country known for its heat and deserts. She was wearing a tight black tank top with spaghetti straps which barely seemed able to hold her voluminous chest up, and though her waist was smaller than his hand span, the tops of her silken breasts threatened to spill right out of the tank top. The silk black netting which clung to her legs beneath her short red mini-skirt matched the tank top and the outfit was complemented by a pair of heavy black boots. The combination emphasised her lean, muscular frame. He looked longingly at the sculpted thighs and the flat abdomen. A wrinkle in the shirt had yanked it up over her pubic bone and he could see the ridges of a sculpted torso. She was like a beautiful, pale, female version of the street rat and he was shocked to find himself aroused by that. Momentarily forgetting her past identity, he smiled wickedly as he mentally compared her to Jasmine. The princess was positively plain compared to this warrior woman! And maybe, he thought, just maybe, having her know her other, true identity might benefit him. For what was the street rat's fiancé but the princess of a small-time kingdom? This woman had been a living goddess. She could take down empires single-handedly. With that in mind, Mozenrath bent to carry her into the Citadel. It would have been easier to teleport them both into his lavish chambers, but he liked the idea of her opening her eyes to see him carrying her into the castle from the dead of the desert night.

It didn't happen that way. With her wide emerald green eyes opening, she slowly came into consciousness as Mozenrath laid her lithe body on the soft down covers of his enormous bed. As light as she was, he wished he'd just teleported them both into the room. Finding the task of carrying a 45kg woman a few meters - well, a few hundred meters, to give himself full credit - to be a difficult task only reminded him of that woman's necessity to his own failing health and her reason for being here.

"Welcome to the Citadel," Mozenrath said formally as a pair of huge green eyes focussed on him. "I am Mozenrath, Lord and Ruler of the Land of the Black Sand." She laid still, appraising him, noting the thick blacks and blues of the silks he wore beneath his cape and turban.

"I an Karena," she said evenly. "Where am I, truly, and what year is this?" Surprise showed on Mozenrath's angular face. He had not expected this question to arise so soon, despite the clearly unfamiliar background into which she had been dropped. She had also answered him in his own language. Reading this in his face, she spat, as if offended suddenly,

"I speak five languages. And I have travelled through ninety-eight countries. From what I have seen already, this is not one of them. Furthermore," she said, reaching into a pocket in the front of the skirt and withdrawing a flat, red-backed tablet, "you have neglected to remove my iPhone even though I was unconscious and defenceless against your taking it if you wanted to. If you were from my time you would know that every piece of vital and personal information about me is contained within this item and you would know how to access it yet you" she said, holding the slender, red-backed tablet up for him to see, "don't even seem to know what it is. I'm also still wearing my smart watch, which is synced to my phone." She held up her left wrist. A square screen attached to plain black straps glowered at him. "And finally - " she shook her head vigorously. From each ear a white bud dropped into her hands. "Blue tooth earphones, from which music should be playing, as it was only very recently, and which you clearly don't recognise either." She held the small devices up to Mozenrath. He cocked an eyebrow. She folded her her hand around the buds. "Awesome," she muttered, "The case is missing. I can't charge my fucking..." She frowned, then stared straight at Mozenrath with a far-seeing gaze he almost found unnerving. There could be no doubt about it, then: this was certainly her, the conqueror of conquerors, the destroyer of worlds. The wait had been worth it. A smile curled his upper lip. She was everything he would have hoped she'd be: sharp, observant, beautiful, strong, and completely ageless. She could be aged between fifteen and thirty, she was wise beyond her years, young in the face and strong in the muscles which rippled beneath her skin. She was like no other woman Mozenrath had ever seen.

"Mozenrath, Lord and Ruler of the Land of the Black Sand," she said, excusing herself from having to struggle to sit up, for she too suspected that she had not the strength yet to do so, "I do not know how you have brought me here, or why. As I am not chained I may presume that I am not exactly a prisoner, but the lack of restraints may be a psychological trick designed to rob me of hope when I discover that I am locked in a tower on a precipice or some shit." She smiled wryly to see the handsome young lord unwittingly smiling approvingly at her. "My interest in my capture is therefore piqued," she said flippantly, "for I am from a poor family and you would not be able to ransom me. If you still intend on trying to, I've already told you where you can find my personal information, but I suspect that you won't be able to utilise it here even if you can decipher how to use my iPhone. If you wanted to injure me in some sadistic way you probably would have done so by now and you could still try, but as I am trained in boxing, Aikido and Taekwondo - I would invite you to try." She smirked. "Taekwondo and Aikido are ancient Asian warrior arts of combat, and the fact that you did not already know that tells me again that we are not in 2019 anymore. I don't know if this means anything to you, but I currently hold two different martial arts titles in two different nations, in two different weight categories. I'm not considered particularly important but I am very well known in the way that people are well known in my time, and despite the fact that you will not be able to ransom me, my disappearance will not go unnoticed. So where am I really, and why am I here, Mozenrath, Lord and Ruler of the Land of the Black Sand?" Mozenrath smirked, but he felt uneasy, and this was not a feeling to which he was accustomed. Years of dreaming of this moment had done nothing to prepare him for it. She was dominant in any century, he realised. He had already established the girl's new identity, though Mozenrath didn't tell her that and he noted that she hadn't really told him anything about who she was, either. She was clever: she'd used a lot of words to describe a life that could've been anybody's, but which he did know to be hers, without actually revealing her identity.

And he knew quite a lot about her, actually. He knew, for example, that she was twenty-five-years old, that she lived in a large metropolis and that she had just graduated from a prestigious medical school. She had been an elite gymnast – she'd won a medal at something called the Olympic Games when she was seventeen. She was the first person in her nation-state's history to win an Olympic medal in gymnastics, and she'd been audacious enough not only to win a gold medal but to go on to win two more at that same Olympiad. At the age of seventeen she was considered one of the best gymnasts the world had ever seen. A prodigious academic, she had been accepted to medical school after completing a strenuous undergraduate program with two majors and an Honours attachment. She'd paid for her tertiary education with scholarships won mostly on academic merit but with a hefty dose of charisma mixed into a tale of woe and deprivation, or what was considered deprivation in her world. He did know about the Martial Arts and the national titles, just as he also knew about the library and the personal gym she kept in her house. Mozenrath even about the pole-dancing classes she'd begun taking after her graduation for fun. He knew that she was paid a lot of money to sit around in lingerie, and that she was a cover model whose sudden disappearance would indeed be noticed. That did not concern him. He knew her hobbies, all of them, from her love of chess and history to the secret stash of _Goosebumps_ books hidden in the cavernous corners of her library, which dwarfed his own.

He also knew that he needed to keep the extent of his knowledge to himself when dealing with Karena.

"You will need to sleep for awhile," abruptly, standing to leave. "Dinner will be served in the Great Hall in two hours. You will find more suitable attire in the wardrobe on that wall," he gestured towards a double set of doors, then spun on the heel of one boot and stalked out of the room, his cape swirling around him.

The Conqueror of Conquerors entered the Great Hall fifteen minutes late, and walking with the air he would expect from the Conqueror of Conquerors. Mozenrath tapped his fingers against the trestle table, partly with impatience at having to wait for her, and partly with excitement. This was definitely her. He could see it in the way that she walked, in the way that she held herself. Women like Karena did not walk like that in 2019: Karena was a gymnast and her footsteps were light, but she was also used to wearing heavy black travel boots. She now floated gracefully across the marble floor, her chin held high, the princess line dress with its plunging neckline framing her breasts and her tiny waist sweeping gently along the ground around her silk shoes. Dozens of layers of silk flowed from the waist of the gown, a pale emerald colour designed to bring out the colour of her eyes. For jewellery she had selected identical gold cuffs. Her hair had been plaited into a long rope behind her, woven with gold silk strings that emphasised its cool dark whorls. She advanced to the heavily laden trestle table without glancing at it and immediately took the seat at the opposite end from Mozenrath.

"Good evening,' he said evenly. "How did you sleep?"

"Deeply and well," she responded, her voice a sultry contralto. She looked over the table. Gold flatware, heavy china platters, thick linen table cloths and serviettes coiled into gold rings, bowls of flowers – recently cut, her nose told her – placed at regular intervals along the long trestle table – and an absolutely enormous array of foods and wines. It was impossible to tell, based on the cuts of meat, the fruits, and the wines, where she might be. _That's okay,_ she thought: _this is an interrogation but it need not be a one-way interrogation. And there are worse ways to be interrogated._

Two hours later, Karena was absolutely full and the selection of wines was starting to affect her.

"Your contempt for your current world intrigues me," Mozenrath smiled. "I can offer you unlimited research facilities here, and you would gain knowledge of an energy source unknown to your world."

"An energy that is not currently present on the electromagnetic spectrum accessible to humans," Karena agreed, eyeing the gauntlet.

"In exchange for you using the knowledge you gain to heal me." Karena lifted a golden goblet to her lips and pretended to take a slow sip. She had made her decision hours ago, when Mozenrath had first explained the source of his power. _Unlimited research facilities_, made possible by that gauntlet.

"I would need to transport certain items from my world," she said steadily, "which I know that you are quite capable of doing, since the shoes on my feet just so happen to be my favourites, taken from my wardrobe at home." She smiled, swirling the wine gently. "I would need to make frequent... visits to certain places to obtain the resources I require for the task you have given me." _Places that I would never be authorised to access, _she thought but didn't say.

"That will not be a problem," Mozenrath said dismissively.

"I would need my own wing in the Citadel," Karena went on smoothly.

"Fine."

"I also cannot promise that I can heal you," she said softly. "You said it yourself: we cannot access this energy in 2019. To the best of my awareness, nobody in history has ever studied it, let alone mastered it. It is entirely possible that I can merely subdue some of its... side effects," she said carefully, noting that Mozenrath was rubbing his temple yet again, his face pinched. He'd been doing that continuously for two hours.

"I realise that," Mozenrath said. Xerxes floated over to Karena and curled around her shoulders. Amazingly, she showed no reaction to this. Mozenrath watched in disbelief as her left hand drifted up to tickle Xerxes' scales.

"Does nothing bother you?" he blurted out uncharacteristically. Karena looked down the table at Mozenrath.

"Nothing," she said firmly.

**Six Hours Later**

In the depths of a night lit by a sliver of moon in the sky, Karena slipped quietly down the deserted, hallowed hallway, shivering in her lace underwear with its matching silk over-gown. She slid through Mozenrath's bedroom doors, which were slightly ajar. The young sorcerer was resting peacefully on his back in the middle of the enormous bed, his thick black hair tumbled around his face on the silk pillow slip. She stood over him for a moment, watching him with a cool appraisal. He seemed so fresh and innocent, his features uncreased by the furrow she'd come to associate with him, as unaware of his gaze when he was locked deep in concentration as he was now, locked deep in slumber. He looked positively innocent in sleep. Karena slipped over to the edge of the bed, lifted the covers and slid in beside Mozenrath. He didn't wake from his slumber until he felt her cool body press up next to his. Then he awoke with the start she had expected from him the moment she'd slid through the doors, despite the care she had taken to maintain her silence, figuring that the slightest noise in the inky depths of night would awaken him suddenly.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, sitting up and gathering the blankets around his naked torso.

"I'm cold and lonely. I thought you might be, too," she murmured in her sultry contralto, though there was no need for quiet in the dark, lonely chambers of the Citadel. The moonlight streaming into the room danced over her gown, which was open to reveal the lacy bra and matching lace underpants. He gaped at her. _This is no frigid Princess Jasmine: this is the conqueror of conquerors,_ he thought for the fiftieth time that night. In the stream of moonlight now, her expression invisible, she knelt before him in the darkness, her gown open and trailing behind her. She traced her fingers lightly down the sides of her face and upped his chin in her hands.

"I want to touch you," she breathed, leaning forward and kissing him gently. Her mouth lingered on his lips, soft and sensual. She knew she'd said the right thing: he dropped the blankets and his lips parted slightly. She waited for him to move first and he did, his tongue flickering over hers and then retreating as quickly as it'd entered her mouth. He was afraid. He couldn't remember anybody ever asking to touch him, and he hungered for the caress of her fingers, her hands, her mouth. Karena leaned back, letting him view her taut, supple body in the moonlight, the pale yellow rays of soft light washed down her chest, through the deep valley of her cleavage and framing the hard muscles of her abdomen. She steadied his hands on her waist and kissed him again, slowly, taking her time, being sure to avoid forcing him. When his lips parted this time she sensed his sudden eagerness and her tongue slipped between his lips, a gentle exploration. She withdrew slowly and pursed her own plump lips around his lower lip, tugging softly. He opened his eyes. She ran her fingers through his silky hair with one hand and pressed the heel of her other palm into his chest, guiding him back down onto his back. Beginning with his mouth, she kissed her way down his throat, alternating between lips and tongue, lingering at the hollow in his clavicle, her hands running over his shoulders and then back up to safety, to his hair, instinctively knowing that she must avoid drawing his attention to the gauntlet, to the cause of so much of his anger. His hands found her back and she quickly unclasped her bra for him. Her bountiful breasts sprang free of the lace restraints and she slipped her shoulders out of the glossy white gown. He ran his hands over her arms and cupped her right breast in his left hand as she stroked his face with the back of her fingers, her long nails cool on his heated skin. She bent to his neck again and tasted that heat as he squeezed the soft, plump flesh, his fingers grazing one erect nipple. A soft moan slipped out of his throat and she purred against it, trailing her lips down the centre of his chest, careful to avoid the damaged right arm as she leaned onto him. The blankets had been pushed down below his groin and she touched the waist band of his pants with a feathery probe pf her quick, nimble fingers to gauge his reaction. This was a man, she knew, who hadn't had the pleasure of consensual touch terribly often, or at all. She kissed purposefully the skin at the edge of the waistband, avoiding tugging it down, but as she rose back up she brushed against his lower body and felt his hardness beneath the blanket and sheet. He groaned as she teased her way back up his chest with her mouth so she edged his pants down and leaned onto his torso, her breasts pressing against him. She worked her way back up his throat to his mouth, stamping love into his skin with a singular purpose. This time when their lips met he kissed her with a passion that surprised her, his tongue moving boldly into her mouth as he seized her upper arms and sat up, both of his hands finding her breasts. His skin was soft, for a man, his palms free of calluses, and his touch was not inexperienced.

She inched closer to him and he pressed his lips to her right nipple, his tongue darting out and circling the hard pink rosebud. She heard a quick little gasp escape her mouth and she tossed her leg over him, so that she was finally sitting astride him. She felt his hardness throbbing against her and she lifted his chin from her breast, finding herself hungry for his kiss again. He kissed her throat, moving nimbly along her clavicle, his arms encircling her and her arms him.

Entwined in each other, her breasts pulsing against his chest, their kiss turned hungry on both their parts. Karena realised that she was in danger of losing control and she eased her weight against him. He reclined obligingly. She wasted no time: her lips trailed down his midsection, straight to his manhood, and she took him in her mouth at last. She heard his excited gasp and his breath quickened with pleasure as she trapped him between her tongue and her upper palate, sucking him into her mouth inch by inch, slowly enough so that she could take him right into her throat without gagging.

This was not an easy task: the man had length and girth and his hips thrust up instinctively as the last of him slid into her mouth. She allowed him a few long thrusts and then slid her tongue around his cock in smooth, undulating circles as she rose slowly until she trapped his head in her mouth, lavishing it, sliding her tongue into the slit and relishing his moans. She cupped his sac in both hands and slid right down, her belly low to the bed, taking one of his balls into her mouth at time and sucking, her right hand moving quickly to his shaft to resume stroking. He was panting heavily as she finished with one long lick from the bottom of the shaft to the top, sucked the head into her mouth once more, her tongue swirling around it one last tantalising time before she brought her head up and he tossed her effortlessly onto her back and speared himself between her legs. She tilted her hips up before he could enter her, flicking her legs up easily on either side of her body so that her ankles rested on the pillow beside her head, his cock perfectly aligned with her slit. He slipped, and discovered for himself that his cock was perfectly positioned by the change of angle, dipping into the flowering lips. He plunged into her and she moaned loudly, clutching at his back. With each thrust he withdrew the length of his cock so that he could ram it back into her, the soft pink walls convulsing around him rhythmically. The heat from her rose to mingle with his and that rhythmic clenching and unclenching was his undoing. He felt her climax suddenly and violently as he hit her wall one last time and that triggered his own orgasm. He thrust his hips into her as hard as he could and she pressed his buttocks down, pulling him in even harder. His come spurted into her cunt as his body tightened and his head drooped, his hair brushing against her cheek. He could feel her walls convulsing; this, he knew, was not voluntary. She was coming, her breath hot in his ear, and he became aware suddenly of her soft, smooth flesh pressed against him, the sweat on her palms as her nails dug into his buttocks and then released, her hands dropping to her sides. Perspiration settled around his hairline but he didn't care: he collapsed into her, not minding his weight, which he would've been mortified wasn't substantially greater in his weakened state than that of the gymnast-lingerie model beneath him. He lay still for several long moments, delaying the moment he'd have to slide out of her, his eyes closed, as she stroked his hair and his face. The moon had moved overhead, and the exhaustion of the last twenty-four hours was building within him. He kissed her softly, and she kissed him back, and a special warmth flooded through him. He slid onto the downy mattress beside her and she curled up into his arms.

He slept.

He slept for a long time. Uninterrupted sleep he'd not known since childhood, sleep unperturbed by dreams or nightmares. Thick, dreamless, blessed sleep.

Karena awoke suddenly as the morning rays tentatively sneaked through the black clouds ahead and passed through the clear ceiling, conscious and alert as soon as her eyelids lifted.

She was leaning on one elbow, staring into his eyes as he slowly came to consciousness the next morning.

Wide awake. She was already wide awake.

"Do you know something? I really like your accent," she said suddenly, smoothly. She climbed back onto him without any further attempt at preamble, and he saw that when she was straddling him naked in the light of the day, with the underwear and the silk discarded, she was even more beautiful than before. And she rode him hard and fast, pinning his arms to the pillow and pumping those strong hips, clenching inside in that trained, rhythmic motion. He gasped and, feeling completely at her disposal, came hard into her again, thrusting his hips up as he felt the release. When he was finished he lay, panting, staring up into her bright emerald eyes.

"Now," she smirked, "you owe me one."

And with that, he knew that dominance had been established.

By her.

Over Mozenrath.

**Later**

Clothes. She had wanted to return to 2019, she said, to get her clothes. "I can just conjure your clothing," Mozenrath had said lazily from the bed.

"No, you can't," she'd said flatly," squeezing her bathing water from her long hair with a soft towel in the doorway. Barefoot, her face stripped of makeup, she looked as innocent as a child. "And when I get back you will see why."

He did. After replacing the amethyst oblisque on a simple drawstring around her neck with a sharp, clear sapphire-blue oblisque that felt harder than diamond, Mozenrath showed her how to use it. "Time travel had better not have any anti-ageing side effects," she said, sounding quite serious and managing to look perfectly ludicrous with her fresh face before she closed her fist around the small oblisque, closed her eyes and disappeared.

And standing now over the pile of clothes, shoes, hats and accessories she'd teleported from 2019, he saw that whilst conjuring most of it wouldn't have taken any serious effort on his behalf, it would have taken some serious time. "The daughters of foreign dictators and kings own less than this," he'd said scornfully.

"Scuse me," she said, leaning forward to pluck a slender screen from the pile. "But I saw a ballroom back there last night and there's something I have to do." The black boots, white singlet top and white skirt had been replaced by skin-tight black leather pants and a matching top that criss-crossed over her breasts and revealed her entire abdomen. The princess wore something similar, though looser and somehow less sexually aggressive. Possibly it was the colour; possibly it was the fact that Jasmine's pale blue top hung more loosely over her breasts, whereas Karena's pushed her breasts up. And where Jasmine was soft and feminine, as he'd already discovered but really noticed now, Karena was solid muscle. The kind of muscle one just didn't see on a woman. It was not unattractive, however.

She had re-painted her face: silver and blue eye-shadow this time, and the thick eyeliner brought out the emerald in her eyes. There seemed to be glitter in her hair and he realised that she was wearing a gold headpiece which slotted into her fringe beneath the black hat with its full rim and blue satin ribbon and rained gold through her long hair even when it was tied up in that long ponytail. Her hair trailed around her as she disappeared down the hall. He heard the sound of a new pair of shoes running on the marble floors: instead of her heavy black travel boots she was wearing knee-high lace-ups with thick platform heels that pulled her up almost to his eye height.

He shook his head and wandered down the long hall, lit by wall sconces and the dim light which trailed in from the crystal ceilings. The entire Citadel had been topped with a crystal roof, as though some previous ruler had had a thing for the light. Despite this, the rooms were all still decidedly cool and dark, with the perpetual heavy black clouds over the land. He heard the sound of music pumping from the ballroom she'd mentioned, which was actually one of three, and when he arrived in the huge doorway he was surprised to find her dancing in front of the screen she'd seized from the enormous pile on the ground. He'd seen video material on her iPhone and this tablet seemed to be a bigger version of that. She'd set it up on a pillar at one end of the room and she was dancing in front of the mirrored walls. He'd never seen dancing like that, though. Or heard music like that. He knew that she was a gymnast, but she'd told him that she couldn't dance. Beneath her skin-tight pants he could see her powerful quadriceps rippling with movement. He winced as she flipped forward suddenly, turning beatifically in the air as she sailed through a free-walkover that even his uneducated eye could see was going to fall short, but he was quick enough to see her left leg shoot out and plant a boot onto the ground to break her apparent fall before she dropped flat onto her back with her arms stretched out at her sides, flinging her hat out to one side, laughing. He looked at her, lying on the floor, her footprints clear in the thick dust, her shiny hair spread out behind her head, its dark brown strands interspersed with gold. She was breathing hard but happily. The dust had risen from the floor and was floating in the air above her. Sunlight glinted through the crystal ceiling, streaming down around her, and the rising dust seemed to sparkle. The moment seemed to hitch in time for him, and then the music changed.

"Ooh! I love this song!" she snapped her hands up to the floor beside her ears and pushed up. Her legs flicked up and tucked underneath her arched back so that she went from lying flat on her back to standing in under a second. That, he'd seen the street rat do many times before. She was dancing already, mirroring the dancers on the screen in front of her while her own reflection showed him her clear, happy face. She looked like a child playing, suddenly innocent again. She dropped close to the ground, her right leg extended out to the side, and spun around on her left foot, snatching up the black hat and dropping it neatly back onto her head as she spun, her eyes never leaving the dancers on the screen. She leapt forward and balanced on one arm, her hips bent so that her torso seemed to bend right in half, her legs parted in a split, and then she put her other arm on the ground, pushed her torso straight up, snapped her legs together and walked around in circles a wide circle on her hands. When she'd completed four rotations and her back was facing the screen she lowered one of her legs slowly to the ground in front of her, her back arching impossibly. Such a powerful display of flexibility and strength. Her top leg bent at the knee, her foot flexed in the air, and still she held the position. The song finished and a new one began, this one with a hectic tempo. Her bent front leg straightened and she pushed off the ground, sprang back off her hands and suddenly she was tumbling backwards across the marble floor, effortlessly. Her mood had changed. He didn't know how, but he could feel it. It was as though the air in the room had been pushed up with the dust on the floor and sucked out the doors, taking with it the room's natural chill and replacing it with a frantic heat. There was anger in her movements now, a certain viciousness that expressed itself in the way she moved her hands, her head, and in the way she pointed her boots. Dust continued to fly off the floor, but instead of sitting in the sunlight, it careened around the room with her, a dust storm in a ballroom. He shrank back against the shadows, unwelcome here. The instruments playing on the tablet were unfamiliar to him; the structure of the music was completely foreign, and so were her movements, all of them, but when she had pushed back from that bridge, her mood had changed and she was angry now. Even in her anger she moved with a smooth grace that he himself admired, and he wanted desperately to keep watching her. She drifted towards the doorway, risen onto the toes of her boots, back straightened, chin up, her arms and hands fluttering around her in quite a different way to the original boot-stomping, shoulder-swaying movements she'd begun with, and although she seemed to look straight at him she didn't see him. Interrupting her now would be... inadvisable. Shocked at himself suddenly, at the realisation that he was scared of her, this conqueror of conquerors, this tiny woman, scared of her, scared of seeing that look in her eyes focussed on him. He backed away, almost stumbling in the dark, closeting himself in the shadows but refusing to walk away despite the work he had to do. He was wasting time watching a girl from the future dance and turn somersaults. It was ludicrous. There was so much work to do today and...he kept watching.

For hours.

Karena stopped dancing when the music stopped. The iPad had only been at thirty percent when she had picked it up. Karena slid over to the pillar and picked it up, staring at the blank screen. A blank slate. She sighed and looked up at the crystal ceiling, sliding the iPad back down onto the pillar. A smile that would've been interpreted as being peculiar had anybody been around to see it flashed onto her face. A blank slate.

She walked through the dust hanging in the air in the once-magnificent ballroom and continued on through the labyrinthine halls, guided by the sound of work noises. Following these somehow familiar sounds through the completely foreign citadel led Karena up a steep, winding staircase and around a sharp corner flanked by a tall stone pillar with a dust-caked vase poised delicately on top of it. It was the first object of decoration Karena had seen on her walk through the castle, her skin cooling rapidly in the dim light. The tapestries which hung from the walls did not provide much insulation. She walked over to the vase more quickly than she would've liked to admit and bent to look at it closely. The vase was definitely Greek. She was sure of that. But she was uncertain of anything else. The entire citadel seemed to be constructed of and adorned by a mish-mash of elements found in the west and in the east. It would have been opulent once, possibly even a little crass. Now, her boots echoed down the deserted halls and left prints as evidence of her being there, evidence she'd initially tried to remove by swiping her feet along the smooth marble only to discover that that just left a trail in her wake. Karena found herself standing before a set of heavy doors at the end of a hallway. She didn't recognise much of her surroundings, and this baffled her. I've travelled the motherfucking world, she thought as she clomped up the steps. I've studied history. Art. Ancient fucking warfare! I know how to figure out where I am, yet... yet she still hadn't figured out where this Land of the Black Sand would be on a map of her world. She'd brought a map of her world back with her, and she was mentally crossing the Republic of Georgia off the map as she felt a draft waft over her. She was frustratingly unfamiliar with the stone used to construct the walls and with the strands of wool woven into the tapestries. Her nose picked up nothing more familiar than the scent of dust and her fingers nothing more than the threads of gold woven into the wool to bring flashes of light to the pieces. Flashes of light which would never be seen in this place. Affecting an undaunted air (blank slate), Karena pushed through the heavy doors, their wood unfamiliar to her touch and the polish unfamiliar to her smell, and walked into the lab. Her lips parted in the smallest of gasps and she turned in long circles, staring around her in shock. The rest of the stronghold was choked with dust, but it had seemed impregnable. The lab, on the hand, almost gleamed. Every surface had been vigorously scrubbed clean, the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves alphabetically ordered, the jars and bottles meticulously labelled and arranged symmetrically on shelves on the wall behind the main work table, which was cluttered without being messy... and half of the tower had collapsed on the western side. She stared at the rubble.

"So this is what happens when you tangle with the might of the street rat," she said flatly, knowing that half a tower hadn't collapsed because of a fist fight between two small guys. Mozenrath finally looked up at her, determined to ignore her sarcasm and finding himself relieved at the sight of her shocked expression. So the bitch can be taken be surprise, her surmised, feeling a semblance of his old self seeking back into his bones.

"Come here," he ordered, relieved to hear that some semblance of authority had returned to his voice. She looked up in obvious surprise and he smirked. "I don't like to repeat myself," he said lowly, "and I do believe that you will want to see this." Karena walked over to the young lord, whose arms were crossed over his chest. He turned from her to the black stone wall behind him, waved his hand through the air and something happened. The air before them both seemed to swirl, and then a bolt of light slashed open in front of them, seeming to burst and tear simultaneously. "Explain this with your science," Mozenrath sneered. Karena's eyes widened. She was staring through, or into, something. More vividly than the videos she'd been playing on her iPad, the colours blurred into a thick mix before ordering themselves into shapes.

"The Princess Jasmine and her street rat fiancé," Mozenrath said faux-grandly. Karena peered at the scene in front of her. She'd never have believed it if she'd not been standing in front of it, but she was looking into a lush green palatial garden. A marble fountain spotted water high into the air beneath a sky so startlingly blue she found herself suddenly stricken by homesickness. Beside the pool in which the falling water gathered sat a beautiful young woman with almond-shaped brown eyes, plush pink lips, a soft, deep cleavage and a long, elegant neck. Karena noted the bizarre similarities in their outfits: the princess Jasmine was wearing pale blue harem pants and a strapless silk top that hung more loosely over her breasts than Karena's electric blue, PVC version. Jasmine was laughing at something, a delicate hand covering her mouth, and for the first time Karena noticed Aladdin balancing on his hands next to her on the edge of the fountain. "She's so soft!" Karena said scornfully, looking at Jasmine's delicate frame. She could see, however, that Jasmine would not be a weak opponent. There was more to her than loose silk pants and a pretty smile; Karena could see that. Jasmine's movement's were delicate but quick, suggestive of agility. "She certainly is soft," Mozenrath sneered, though he hadn't even known that the female form could develop Karena's strong muscles whilst retaining its curvature until just a couple of days ago and he'd had no idea of the potential contained within those muscles until just a few hours ago. He eyed her covertly now, comparing her to the princess and their weirdly similar outfits. Jasmine looked like a doll; Karena resembled a marble statue. He remembered the malicious smile on her face as she'd held that dagger to his chin. He studied her studying Jasmine, a curious smile playing on her blood-red lipsticked lips.

"Karena just like master," Xerxes said from the other side of the room, where he was circling apparently aimlessly but, when Mozenrath looked more closely, seemed to be watching Karena also. And in the eel's eyes, cold terror. He looked back at Karena, who had lifted a hand to the vision as if to reach out and snatch the miniature figures from the vision. The expression on her face was incredible: she was instantly fascinated by Jasmine. Aladdin flipped down beside her, laughing, bending double to tickle her.

"Aladdin, stop!" She pleaded in a voice that had always sounded grotesquely girly to Mozenrath and which now sounded positively shrill. Karena's lip turned up in disgust as Jasmine weakly struggled against her fiance's embrace. They were playing, as Mozenrath had come to understand. Did Karena understand that?

"He's well-nourished for a street rat," Karena remarked. "And he's fucking hot," she said, her wide eyes squinting as though her vision could zoom in on the street rat's chiselled jaw.

And then the shit hit the fan.

Mozenrath was shocked and surprised by the wave of jealousy that hit him. He swiftly raised his right hand, unthinking, reflexively, and backhanded the woman standing next to him across the face with a sharp snap of his thumb and forefinger. The blast from the gauntlet slapped her hard across the face. She tumbled backwards, spinning across the table. There was a loud clatter as jars tumbled off the end of the table. Glass shattered on the floor. Karena broke her own fall on the table, fingers splayed.

"Oh, HELL no," she said evenly. She pushed herself up and lashed out with an electric-blue PVC-clad leg. He didn't even see her move. Her flying back kick caught him straight in the gut and the air whooshed out of him. Clutching at his abdomen with his left arm, he raised the gauntlet and she saw fear in his eyes. She kicked the gauntlet away easily and he found himself thinking that the street rat looked like a rank amateur compared to the fighter who could dance. He stared at the spot in the air where his gauntlet had been and she kicked him in the stomach again, a simple front kick aided by a quick jump that added to the already monstrous strength of the fighter who'd been training in a gymnasium for more than two decades. That simple kick pushed every last ounce of her power as a fighter and a gymnast into Mozenrath. It would have knocked down a man twice his size - it had - and she didn't even know how frail he truly was. He fell to his knees this time, unable to breathe and terrified that she would see him curl up into the foetal position of the severely winded. His pride hurting more than the bruises that were already beginning to develop beneath his silks, he blasted her hard and heard her gasp as her feet came off the ground and she spun through the air. She landed hard, unable to spot the ground in time to break her fall. "Ohhhhh..." she groaned, one hand to the trickle of blood thumping from her temple. His breath heaving in his chest, greedy for air, he hit her again. She reacted as though she'd been kicked in the stomach, her small body flinging up off the floor. He heard her grunt an "Unh" of shock and bewilderment, and then she was groaning, curled up against the pain as he stared at her through heavily lidded eyes from his own position on his knees on the other side of the room. He crawled to the work table and hauled himself to his feet. "Don't you ever-" his voice was shaking and the threat was cut off when she leapt to her feet and charged at him with a savage growl. He wasn't fast enough to deflect the onslaught of kicks. He couldn't anticipate any of her movements. She was fast and she was precise. He felt his ribs crack beneath a particularly vicious side kick, but he did not feel, much less see, the spinning hook kick connected her her boot to his jaw. He didn't feel anything. The last thing he saw before her hammer kick came crashing down on his head was the stare he already knew to fear behind her fighting stance. By the time that had registered he had already smashed into the floor. Karena stepped right over him. Groaning and tasting blood, he rolled over and watched her stalking off, her shoulders thrust out and her chin high. Bitch.

He winced as he pulled himself to his feet, dripping blood from some place, and he gingerly touched his jaw. He snapped his fingers together angrily and stepped into the bathroom closest to his chambers. His robes dropping to the marble floor, he limped down the stairs into the bath, staring down at his bruised torso in shock. The street rat left lighter bruises than Karena did, and although he'd seen true rage in her eyes he got the distinct impression that she hadn't been trying that hard. He was almost certain he had at least two broken ribs and, feeling along his jawline, he came across an enormous bump from which his fingers fled with the pain of touch. He couldn't believe it. He tried to lean back against the marble bath, but couldn't get comfortable. He ended up dragging himself uselessly out of the bath, finding a soft clean robe and crawling into his massive bed, alone and miserable. He had done this. He deserved this. He stared up at the crystalline moon above him. The clouds had parted for once, and he could see the stars sprinkled across the early night sky. He thought back to how Karena had slipped through his doors just last night and pressed her cool body up against him. He thought back to this morning, when he'd hid in the shadows and watched her at what seemed to be her most private moments, dancing alone in the dusty ballroom. The dust-choked, neglected cavern that had somehow become a golden ballroom when she had entered it. He saw her shoulders swaying in time to the beat of that strange music, the sunlight glinting off her electric-blue pants as she arched her back and split her legs into that amazing bridge position, and the ripple of her muscles as she flipped lightly across the room. He saw, clear as day in his mind, her fresh face, stripped of makeup, her feet bare and her hair dripping with water from the bath. And he was blinking back tears suddenly. Tears of frustration. Tears of anger. And finally, crucially, tears of sadness. Mozenrath felt something tear open inside him somewhere. His right hand ached. His ribs ached. His jaw ached. And - dare he admit it? - his heart ached. The great Mozenrath, Lord and Ruler of the Land of the Black Sand, brought to his knees by some random woman from the future.

No. Not some random woman from the future: the conqueror of conquerors. Except he didn't know for certain that that was who she really was: he hadn't even established that yet. This whole plan was imploding. He didn't even know if she knew who he suspected her of being, and he couldn't send her back without finding out. He also didn't know why he couldn't stop thinking about her. So he was partly relieved when she walked into the room. The electric-blue PVC was gone, as was the hat, and she was now wearing a flowing black, ankle-length skirt that, when combined with a simple black tank top, looked like a simple but elegant gown. The soft silk swished around her black-and-silver ankle boots, which clicked across the marble floor until she reached the cushion of the Persian rug. Her hands were folded in front of her beneath her breasts. And she was still wearing the sapphire oblisque. Giving that to her had been the biggest mistake of his life, he realised with a sudden flash of anger.

"I have something for the pain," she said softly, moving towards him. She opened her palm to reveal a small plastic cup full of white tablets. Drugs from her world. She reached out to the crystal chalice beside his bed and held it to his mouth. He washed the pills back in a stiff silence. She sat beside him, saying nothing, for what felt like a long time, her knees bent and poised neatly beside her. He stared up at the crystal ceiling in silence, waiting for the drugs to begin to work but far too proud to ask when he could expect relief from the dull pounding in his jaw and his head. His ribs seemed to be alright provided he didn't move, so he lay on is back, staring up in stony silence. He began to grow slightly sleepy and then... and then he began to feel... to feel... good. He felt good. Happy! He felt happy! A light shone into his eyes: Karena was holding her iPhone up to his face and a small light was aimed directly into his eye. She nodded and clicked the phone off, silently sliding it on to the table next to the chalices. The chalices from which they had both drunk just last night. One of which she had held up to his mouth just a little while ago to help him swallow the...the drugs. The drugs from her world. He'd been angry at the time. What had he been angry about? It didn't seem relevant any longer. The warmth was spreading through his body. She picked up his left hand, touched her first two fingers to the pulse on his wrist and her lips moved as she began to silently count, staring at the gold device on her left wrist. His skin warmed to her touch and Mozenrath turned his head on the pillows to look at her. She didn't seem to notice. She simply laid his hand back down and set both of hers in her lap.

"You are beautiful," he murmured slowly. There was a vague nagging memory tugging at him, a warning note sounding in his ear, but he couldn't, wouldn't listen to it. Not... not right now. Later, he admonished his inner voice. Later you can go back to tormenting me. Karena's face loomed over his, expressionless. Her eyes could brighten up any dark place, he thought sleepily, reaching for the silver chalice again. She put a firm hand on his and gently returned it to his chest. "No more wine," she said softly. He snapped his fingers. A flurry of weak blue sparks sputtered out and died in the air in front of him. He blinked. Snapped his fingers again. And the same thing happened. He stared at the gauntlet for a few seconds, dumbfounded, and then slowly turned his head to stare up at Karena in shock. "It's not permanent," she said in that same soft yet firm voice. He felt his arm grow heavy. His entire body felt ether-light, except for his right hand. And he knew, consciously, that that should bother him. He should definitely be concerned about the fact that he had apparently just been drugged and robbed of his only weapon. Yet he wasn't. Not at all. He even found himself smiling a dazed smile. "What's that expression?" he heard the slur in his voice, and didn't care. He tried to add that to the list of things he had found he no longer cared about and realised that he couldn't do that, either. "The expression," Karena said, her voice fading away as she bent over and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead so that she could kiss him there, "is Checkmate."

He awoke suddenly to see her removing a needle from his arm.

"What the hell was that?"

"Just something for the pain," she said in the same soothing voice she'd used last night, clicking the buckle on the tourniquet and slipping it off his arm.

"No! Reverse it!" he ordered, although he could already feel the effects taking hold. And this time they were much stronger. "Reverse this right now!"

"I can do that," she said, "and I can do it anytime I want. Which I will, when I'm sure that you're not going to blast me with that thing again." She waved a hand at the gauntlet.

"But if your world doesn't have magic..."

"This really is a painkiller. It's a wonderful little drug called morphine, and I didn't realise that it would neutralise your power. But because I now know how to do that, I can't be sure that you're not going to kill me as soon as you get it back. I'm betting that nobody has figured out how to neutralise the gauntlet's... energy," she fished for a word and came up with that. There was no word for what it felt to be struck by a blow from that thing. "And now I_ have_ figured out how to neutralise it. So you have two choices: you kill me or you trust me."

"It's draining me, Karena," he said miserably, and Karena noted that the young lord had just used her name for the first time.

"The gauntlet. It's drawing my very life force. I need to figure out how to stop it," he all but whispered.

"That is why I'm here." That soft, healing voice.

"Yes," he whispered. Karena returned to the bed and sat down next to him again, leaning over him so that her lips were poised directly over his and her eyes were staring into his. She closed her eyes and kissed him softly on the lips.

"I will find a way to harness the power of that - thing, without it draining your... life force" she vowed, more shocked than she realised she would be to be using such bizarre terminology, shocked that she would make such an astoundingly impossible promise. She stroked his cheek. Such soft skin, for a man.

"I won't use it on you. Ever again," he vowed.

"I know," she whispered.


	2. Chapter Two

Karena was standing alone in the library late one evening two weeks later when a door crashed open somewhere on the exterior of the Citadel. An unfamiliar male voice boomed,

"Honey, I'm HOME!"

Karena dashed towards the sound of the voice, which kept her on its trail through the dark corridors with an endless stream of prattle,

"Come on, Wonderboy! We know you're here and we don't negotiate with terrorists! Or kidnappers. Or whatever it is you think you're trying to do this time! There are no hostage negotiators!"

What? Those euphemisms, the word "wonderboy," hostage negotiators... who on earth had burst into the Citadel? Mozenrath hadn't mentioned importing any kind of posse. It was difficult to imagine Mozenrath entertaining any guests at all. Karena stormed into the Citadel's foyer.

Whatever she was expecting to see, she did not expect to see the wide grin and the blue tail of the djinn she'd heard so much about.

"Whoa, Black Betty!" The djinn shouted at her. A fedora appeared on his head, a banjo appeared in his hands and he nodded his head to the rhythm as he continued: "Black Betty had a child; damned thing gone wild." Karena stood in silent appraisal while the djinn tossed the banjo to one side and seized an electric guitar from nowhere. "I prefer the classic version," he said as an aside to nobody. "Mm-hm." Karena acknowledged calmly. "Though that song has been done to death. When I got dressed this morning I was really thinking of Ciara's version of "Paint it Black." The djinn's fingers skidded off the strings and the guitar howled a screech of protest. He dropped it; it disappeared along with the banjo, and next he dropped his jaw to his waist. Karena was used to being appraised: she was a gymnast first and then a model: she'd spent her entire life taking note of the placement of every limb down to the angle and placement of her smallest finger. And right now, her very stance seemed to have stemmed the djinn's sense of purpose – or perhaps it was the Ciara reference? Almost unconsciously she took a quick inventory of her stance: her right hand was on her hip, fingers flared, and the nails painted bright blue; the hip on which her hand rested was thrusted out to emphasise her dramatic outfit; the toes on the foot of her outstretched leg pointed down at the ground. Black Betty, indeed, she thought as she watched the djinn stare at her outfit: the short black leather skirt, the black corset with its blue satin strings and the black knee-high leather boots laced with thick black laces. The skirt was so short that when she extended her leg, one silk suspender – blue, of course – appeared, obviously attached to a garter beneath the skirt. Around her neck, she wore a black string from which a single large sapphire oblisque nestled into her cleavage, its pointed end wedged between her breasts.

"Well, the colour scheme suits you," the djinn said, "but we're getting you out of here anyway!" Karena said nothing, but she did take on a look of bewilderment as a flash of blue light tore through the air and Mozenrath stepped out of it. Karena surreptitiously looked over him. He can't have been sleeping for very long, but he looked refreshed. Or at least, he was strong enough to hide his exhaustion.

"There's no scientific explanation for this," Karena said. "But I would wager that this is the djinn."

She remained perfectly still as a loud pop ricochetted around the foyer and the djinn whirled around her, having donned a deerstalker hat, a tweed jacket and a pair of oversized glasses.

"You're out of touch," she mused. "Benedict Cumberbatch doesn't wear tweed or glasses." The djinn fussed around, whipped an enormous magnifying glass from thin air and began vigorously studying the skin on Karena's arms. When he raised the magnifying glass to her face she brushed it away, though he had time to note that she did not appear to be wearing concealer or anything that might have hidden a bruise.

"That is more than enough," she said brusquely.

"What are you doing here?" Mozenrath sneered at the djinn.

"What am I doing here?" The djinn boomed, "What are you doing here, Wonderboy?"

"Changing history. Or perhaps repeating it. We will soon see." Mozenrath wrapped his left arm around Karena's cinched waist, pulled her into him and clenched his fist in the gauntlet.

"WHO-OOOA! Back off there, Wonderboy! Let the girl go!" To Karena he said, "We're here to help you. Where are you from?"

Karen smiled smugly.

"Nowhere you've been," she said lightly, "and I am uninterested in returning."

"So you're from Sweden, eh?"

Karena rolled her eyes. "Ooh, I get it. Stockholm Syndrome, amiright?" The djinn opened his mouth to respond, then went silent, confusion on his face again. Then he slowly turned to Mozenrath.

"Heeeeey," he said. "What have you been doing, Mozenrath?"

Mozenrath scowled. "That is entirely nothing with which foreigners need concern themselves," he said, raising his gloved hand.

"Fire in the hole - CLEAR!" Karena shouted gleefully, leaping away from Mozenrath as the blue blast shot straight from the gauntlet to the stunned djinn, who was staring at her in such amazement that he didn't even try to evade or deflect the blow. When the powerful burst of magic smashed into the his chest, he sailed backwards and bounced off the wall, his laughter and prattle dampened entirely.

"Speaking of foreigners..." he said softly.

"FORE!" Karena yelled suddenly, laughing, spinning on the toes of one boot, twirling in a graceful circle with her arms extended above her head, her gaze remaining forward as she twisted almost as fast the djinn himself, eyes burning into his as another blast shot from Mozenrath's gauntlet and hit him square in the chest a second time. Her laughter followed the surprised djinn as he backed away silently, staring from Mozenrath to Karena before floating out the door and shooting off into the black cloudst.

"I doubt that that's the last we'll be seeing of him," Mozenrath scowled. "Though I've never seen him that quiet before." He was breathing hard, his pallor had turned a whiter shade of pale and he was leaning heavily against the door frame, glaring as the djinn sailed away into the night.

"As annoying as that constant blather would be, particularly if what I just saw was a subdued version of himself, he did not seem to be the threat you described," Karena remarked, walking up behind Mozenrath and staring through the open door as the djinn sailed away in the direction of Agrabah.

"And I suppose you can't really ban a djinn from entering anywhere," she continued,

"But he didn't seem to be a real threat." She watched out of her periphery as Mozenrath continued to scowl. "Perhaps not," he said, "if he were acting on his own will."

"He's a spy," Karena realised suddenly.

"Yes." Mozenrath said darkly.

"A spy who can't really be accused of any crime, given that he isn't a human being," she mused. "Who is he working for?"

"Agrabah." Mozenrath said shortly.

"Them again?!" Karena demanded. "I have been here a week and already I am sick of their constant interference! I don't know why you're tolerating it." She paused, and a glint came to her eyes. There was that malice again, he thought. Coldly indifferent one moment, lit up with fury the next. "I could visit their palace as a diplomat, you know," she remarked casually, "to try to find out why they're so obsessed with what you do here." Mozenrath paused, smiling suddenly. He hadn't had a "diplomat" before, and he certainly couldn't use any of his undead soldiers as spies. Apart from their obviously infamous appearances, they were clumsy and unable to convey information, at least not with Karena's verbosity. "You'll go tomorrow," he said.

"Nope," Karena replied cheerfully. "We will have to send word that I intend on visiting peacefully. I'll never be able to just stroll up to the palace in Agrabah if that djinn reports that I am working for you and we don't admit to it. And that is almost certainly what he's going back there to do right now. But if we openly acknowledge it, they may be willing to actually accommodate me." There was a cruel smile on her face as she turned to him and took his hands in hers. "Send word tomorrow that I will be there in, say, seven days. I'm a representative for a head of state. A potentially hostile head of state, but not a state with whom they are currently at war. Tell them that we are interested in negotiating a ceasefire, or even a peace treaty. They'll have to accommodate me, and I won't need to cower behind a djinn to get the information we need if this Sultan and his daughter are as idiotic as you say!" It was an intriguing proposition, though he couldn't help but wonder why this warrior woman was speaking of diplomacy. His mind was still foggy; in truth he'd been almost unable to zap the djinn at all. Damn the woman and her drugs. He felt weaker than ever. Those few blasts had cost him the last of his energy. His head was thudding. He felt the world slipping away from him. Colours spun wildly. He stumbled towards the doors to the balcony. Karena had her back to him: she was leaning on the rail, staring out across the darkened desert. "Karena," he tried to shout, hearing his voice fading into the night air. She must have heard him though; the last thing he saw before he tumbled into the black void was her perfect frame turning against the brilliant moonlight, her smile fading as she lurched, arms outstretched, to catch him before his head hit the floor.

Mozenrath awoke in his own bed, with Karena sitting beside him in a position he was becoming familiar with: her knees bent, her feet tucked up beneath her buttocks, leaning towards him with her emerald green eyes watching him intently. He sighed as he remembered his dramatic fainting spell on the balcony. If she didn't know how weak he was before, she did now. He wondered if she had physically carried him to bed. How humiliating. He opened his mouth to tell Karena to get the fuck out of his room when she slipped off the bed and said "I'm going for a bath. Join me in fifteen minutes," stretching with a yawn. He watched her arch her back, graceful as a swan. Graceful as a swan, but as lethal as a tiger, he mused. She hadn't asked him any more questions; nor had she made any demands or requests apart from his assistance to travel back to 2019 to retrieve more of her possessions. He thought sleepily of the djinn, who seemed to know where Karena was from. It did make sense that if Mozenrath could import women from the future, then the djinn was to some extent aware of that future's existence. Had he seen the future? He responded instantly to Karena's commentary earlier, during which she had used euphemisms local to her time and place in the world, euphemisms that Mozenrath had to rely on context to understand, and sometimes there wasn't enough context for him to understand those euphemisms. But the djinn often made use of similar bombastic commentary; he had for as long as Mozenrath had known him. "Fire in the hole - CLEAR!" Was the djinn somehow utilising an entire phraseology two thousand years before it was developed - and by whichever people Karena originated? Why? He knew so little about the djinn... and about Karena, who had told him nothing beyond largely surface information. The story about her father, such as it was, could be just that: a story designed to ward off further questions by cleverly mirroring his own story. She was a smart woman. He'd chosen her because she was smart. But was she smart enough to trick him constantly? She was the conqueror of conquerors, after all. But even if she was smart enough to have seduced him, why would she? Mozenrath reminded himself that he was in control of this experiment. He heard the former queen splashing around in the adjacent bathroom, no doubt washing her waist-length hair. He hadn't seen hair that long on anybody but the princess of Agrabah, and despite usually keeping her things separate from his, Karena had filled his bathroom with creams, serums, lotions, shampoos, hair conditioners and masques, all from her world. She claimed she'd paid far too much money to leave then behind in the future. He yawned, suddenly sleepy again. He was probably late. Drowsily, he stood, stretched himself, and wandered into the bathroom. He stood in the doorway, watching Karena, wondering if she was aware that she was being watched. A cynical part of him knew that she was. He watched her lather lotion up and down one arm, then lean back against the sloped edge of the luxurious bath and squirt a stream of the creamy lotion into her palm. She threw her head back and soaped up her breasts. He had never seen breasts like hers before: perfect round orbs perched high on her chest, soft without being doughy, each breast punctuated in the centre by a soft pink nipple. As she lathered her breasts in that lotion, he saw those nipples stand erect and at that moment he wanted nothing more than to be in that bath with her. And yet, and yet... he stepped up behind her. She opened her eyes and smiled at him as he stroked her cheek with his left index finger.

"Are you going to join me?" She lay right back and lifted one leg to the side. Extended fully, toes pointed, she showed off perfectly sculpted quadriceps in her thighs and gastrocnemius muscles in her calves. He could count the muscles he saw beneath the skin and he longed to trace then with his hands. He didn't know how to ask for what he wanted and he found himself inhaling sharply as she stood suddenly and turned to face him, the soap running in a stream between her breasts down her abdomen, where it trickled down to the triangle between her legs. Her strong shoulders were thrust back and the water rolled off her breasts and splashed onto the edge of the bath. Her skin gleamed. The scent of her lotion wafted over him and he knew he would always associate that smell with her. The idea of her leaving him again panicked him suddenly and he reached out for her. He kissed her neck and his hands found her breasts at last. His lips and tongue worked around her nipples and he didn't notice that she'd begun tugging his clothing away until she discarded his undershirt and he realised that he was naked from the waist up.

"Come in," she urged him. His hands roamed all over her body; she guided his left hand between her legs and he saw stars as she pulled him closer to her, guided his head up and kissed him on the mouth. He wondered - not for the first time - if he was dreaming. Her lips parted slightly and her tongue flickered over his. This wasn't a dream: he wasn't going to wake up alone and filled with longing and rage. She was really here, naked and wet, and she was kissing him. He dropped to his knees on the bathroom floor and began licking fervently between her legs. She moaned softly and pulled his head closer to her. He clutched her hips and pulled her into his mouth, using his tongue to work around the soft pink cleft just inside her. A dab of shampoo dripped from her wet hair to his upturned face. He could feel her trembling beneath his touch as she moaned again and dropped her hands to her sides in surrender. She was coming in his mouth; he could feel her muscles spasm. When it was over she stood with her head lolling back, her legs apart.

And it was a long night. They were supposed to be preparing for her "diplomatic"'trip to Agrabah and they knew it, but they were each enthralled with the act of what was, he reluctantly admitted, becoming more than something physical. Every time her muscles tightened and she gasped with pleasure he felt a tingle of happiness course through him. He caressed every centimetre of that perfect body, his fingers explored every crevice and every welcoming hole, his mouth tasted her flesh as though it provided him succour denied to him by years of oppression under his cruel and sadistic master. Finally, as dawn broke through the charcoal clouds, they rested in each other's arms.

"I told you I'd make you pay,"'she whispered.

"And I have no doubt that you will," he murmured, "but as payment goes I feel richer now than I did last night." She smiled at him hazily.

"Mozenrath?" She whispered,

"I don't want to leave this place." He swelled with happiness.

"Unless it's to destroy Agrabah and that ludicrous royal family," she added.

"Karena, I -" Mozenrath stopped himself. What the hell had he been going to say? Just say it,'a voice whispered to him, and it was a voice he'd not heard for a very long time.

"Karena, I lo -"

She was asleep.


	3. Chapter Three

**Agrabah**

The letter arrived at the palace in Agrabah; a single sheet of parchment tied with a dark blue ribbon and sealed with a black wax design nobody had ever seen before: a Roman short sword with a snake wrapped around its blade.

"The blue ribbon is his," Jasmine said. "But why a Roman short sword?"

"Maybe he's kidnapped the Roman Emperor," Aladdin joked to Genie, who said nothing. "Or his daughter!" The young man dissolved into laughter. The djinn remained oddly silent. He had been subdued ever since he'd returned from the Citadel. Aladdin was puzzled by his friend's deep silent spells and he couldn't make sense of Genie's attempt to explain that his enemy was harbouring perhaps their most dangerous enemy yet.

"If this woman is designing his wax seals she must have a lot of power," Jasmine mused.

"Maybe," Aladdin said more soberly, "but do you really think Mozenrath cares about a seal he's probably never going to use ever again?"

Jasmine scanned the letter quickly. Her mouth opened in an O of surprise. She blinked rapidly and squinted at the script, as though she was struggling to understand it. "He wants to send her as a diplomat to discuss a possible peace treaty," Jasmine said slowly. She raised her eyes to meet Aladdin's over the parchment.

"It's a trick," Genie said immediately.

"Probably," Aladdin agreed, "but if she has even half as much control over Mozenrath as you say she does, shouldn't we be trying to get her on our side?" Genie looked away.

"She doesn't work that way," he muttered.

"Will you just tell us who she is?" Jasmine demanded.

"It's not just who she is, but what, and how she got here... I can't explain it all!" The djinn floated up to the ceiling and stared out the window.

"Mozenrath stole her from the future, but she's been here before. We get it. It's weird, but it's not the weirdest thing Moze has ever done. It's not even the weirdest thing we've ever seen. And it's not even the first time he's stolen women from the future! What's the big deal?"

Genie sighed with exasperation. "I want to tell you, but I can't. It's against the Code. The type of magic Mozenrath is using now to keep her here is the most arcane, forbidden magic in existence. He's messing with the space-time continuum. The consequences could be catastrophic." He floated back down. "Even she seems to already know things she shouldn't know. She's taunting you with that seal. It's a Roman short sword with an asp wrapped around it. She might as well have sent you a broken crown of olive leaves!"

"Genie, it's just a seal!" Aladdin said, shocked. "She probably just liked the design." The djinn sighed and turned his back. "Give me patience..." he muttered. Turning back, he said,

"Al, remember the picture I painted for you in the sky when Mechanicles mesmerised you? This woman already knows the future. You're not even fighting Mozenrath any more: you're fighting fate. This has all happened already, and it's happened in more ways than one." He slammed his mouth shut at that, but he was too late: with those last words he'd piqued their interest. Both Jasmine and Aladdin looked up immediately.

"What?!"

"I wish I could tell you both," Genie sighed. "But even if I did, you probably wouldn't believe me. Just watch out for her, will you? I thought she might have killed Wonderboy out there."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, I thought that would get your attention," Genie said. "It wouldn't have been an entirely bad thing if they were still out there beating each other half to death..."

"WHAT?"

"We all saw them. The bird. Little Abu. Me. She beat him half to death. She's like nobody you've ever faced, either of you, and NOT purely because she has apparently ascended from the ninth level of hell to get here."

"But you know what she knows," Aladdin said quickly. "You could prepare us."

"I doubt she'll bother with hand to hand combat if she gets it into her head to do something less than diplomatic," Genie said, "and that kind of training takes years to develop. She could take down an SAS officer, and she just might be crueller than Mozenrath himself. Trust me Al, you don't want to fight her. She figured out that the gauntlet was his strongest weapon and she didn't remove it from him. She let him keep it because she knew she could beat him to death with her bare hands and it truly looked like she was going to."

"So when you left," Jasmine said softly, sheer horror in her voice, "he was..."

"Breathing!" Genie said hurriedly. "He was breathing. He wasn't getting up anytime soon but..." The duo fell into a stunned silence.

"So she knew that the gauntlet was the source of his power..." Jasmine whispered,

"Yes! And she didn't take it from him even though she very easily could have. Which obviously means that he doesn't scare her. Which can only be because..." Genie looked out the window. "because she has a weapon so powerful that the gauntlet isn't a threat to her."

"If she did...hurt him as badly as you say, then how do we even know that that's from him?" Aladdin asked, pointing to the sheet of parchment. Silence echoed around the room.

"There would be at least a dozen potential ramifications there," Genie said sombrely. "I could go back to -"

"No!" Jasmine snapped. She sucked in a breath of air. "We have to assume that it is from him. Either way one or both of them will be be expecting you. It's very possible that this whole thing is a trap. And we need you here: whatever their plan is, whomsoever plan it is, I feel certain that she will show up. And if you're for some reason not here when she does... we'll be vulnerable to a double-pronged attack. With her in here and him out there. It's really going to come down to a toss of the dice but I would think we'll be safer with her inside the palace."

"You will never be able to use her as leverage," Genie said. "She'll disappear into the same thin air from which she emerged if you try to do that."

"You have to tell us," Aladdin insisted. "You have to tell us what powers she has. You have to tell us why he's so scared of her." Genie shook his head slowly.

"If he wanted a sorceress he could just ally himself with one here. It must be costing him a lot to steal people from the future. So think. If you were Mozenrath and you could travel into the future, what kind of savage monster would you bring back?"

**Two Days Later**

It was that conversation that had brought Jasmine here, to the Land of the Black Sand. She'd lied about her whereabouts that day, saying that she needed the day for her handmaidens to attend to her. She'd sent Genie and Aladdin off on another water-divining effort, and she'd ridden out to the Land of the Black Sand on the fastest horse in the palatial stables.

And now she was in trouble.

Jasmine knew the Citadel well. She knew most of its lower corridors better than Karena did herself. But when she didn't find Karena there, and when she ascertained by virtue of the missing Mamluk army that Mozenrath was not present in the Citadel, she advanced up the staircase at the western end of the Citadel, to the last place she ever expected to find herself: in the direction of what she correctly presumed to be Mozenrath's personal quarters.

It was at the end of a long, pristine hallway with onyx floors and ebony doors lining both sides – _he's really improved upon the place. Or she has – _that Jasmine came across Karena.

The woman was standing on a balcony at the end of the hallway. Jasmine dashed into the atrium behind Karena silently, with the stealth of a cat, and hid herself carefully behind a pillar of pure rose quartz. Stunned, she realised that she was suddenly in a bedroom. Whose? Karena's? Behind her, a huge circular bed sat on low gold feet, draped in silk sheets and framed by a glorious canopy. _That's a woman's bed,_ Jasmine theorised, looking from the gold sheets to the purple canopies draped artfully from each of the pillars standing to attention beside the bed and tied with a plush red velvet sash. A huge oval mirror occupied the entirety of the wall next to the bed, set in an ornate gold frame. Candles flickered on every post, on every low pillar, on every ebony stand in the room.

Jasmine glanced out to the balcony, where Karena stood, her back upright, gazing out over the land. Her new home? Her new land?

The skies were splattered with an outstanding array of oranges, pinks and mauves: the sun was melting into a purple horizon. From this view, it seemed magical. _She's brought sunshine to the Land of the Black Sand, _Jasmine thought, immediately dismissing the idea as being wildly illogical even as she reflected that on her every visit, the sky had been shrouded in black clouds and that she had never see the sun shine upon the iron-black sand. Not ever.

The scent of burning oil floated over the room, and a rush of hot breeze washed Karena's own personal scent into the room. It was completely unfamiliar to Jasmine, and distinctly authoritative. Dominant. Her fragrance, her perfume, was dominating: strong, made from foreign elements. Karena's hands rested on the marble balcony. Jasmine could see that her fingers were heavy with jewels, thick gold vanguard bracelets on each slender wrist. From behind she did not seem formidable, but she was hidden by the shadows cast by the sinking sun.

Jasmine was enthralled by the perfectly still figure, captivated by the glorious sunset. She didn't realise that she'd stopped paying attention to her surrounds until she heard a familiar set of boots striding towards her.

_Oh, no._

Jasmine's heart leapt into her throat and she swivelled around on her toes, expecting to be hit with a blast of the gauntlet's power.

Mozenrath strode into the doorway, shaking his curly hair loose. Drops of water flicked off the shiny black locks and puddled on the floor behind him. He swept off his cape in one swift move and tossed it, carelessly, onto a chaise lounge as his black booted feet matched confidently across the glossy pink marble floor. A sergeant appeared from the shadows, snatched up the cloak, and bowing deferentially, disappeared again. Karena turned with a slow, practised grace from the balcony and stepped towards him with a soft smile on her lips, her huge green eyes sparkling with hunger, emerald green irises sparkling against her thick kohl eyeliner, the gems sewn into her black silk down gleaming in the firelight. She moved effortlessly towards him, and somehow her impossibly high heels made not a sound on the hard floor. She positively glided over it. Jasmine saw that her lips were painted with a glossy, lascivious pink shade of lipstick. She raised her arms slightly, their silk sleeves gracing the floor. He moved quickly to her and seized her upper arms, pushing her back against the balcony. His right hand cupped the back of her head as if to prevent her from toppling over as her back bent gracefully over the edge of the balcony, and he pulled her face to his. Jasmine saw him thrust his hips into her and realised with a shock that he was very aroused. She stared in open-mouthed shock as Mozenrath kissed her on the mouth, then moved his lips on her throat, down the neckline of her dress and onto her breasts. The plunging neckline revealed a disproportionately large cleavage. Jasmine correctly figured that Karena's breasts were being pushed up by some kind of undergarment, but the flesh revealed a substantial bust for someone as small-boned as Karena.

Mozenrath put his hands on her tiny waist as Karena expertly guided him backwards into the bedroom, her own hands quickly manoeuvring his clothes and hers. They were naked before Jasmine could avert her eyes, puddles of silk and velvet at their feet, Karena still standing in her tall heels and her black nettings, which were clipped to a lace garter high on each thigh. Jasmine watched Mozenrath's hands slide into her silk g-string with envy, shocked at this, her sudden feelings of envy. Her own sex life wasn't unstimulating, but she couldn't remember the last time she and Al had been permitted the privacy and the time to explore each other this way. Jasmine watched Mozenrath slide her underwear down and stared openly - if from the shadows - at the two completely hairless, perfectly sculpted bodies before her. Mozenrath wasn't scrawny anymore! He was still slight, but he had muscle on his bones now and Jasmine could see a sculpted abdomen twisted towards Karena, the flickering lights of the candles glinting off his torso. They were both giggling now: she'd never heard him laugh with pleasure and she found herself leaning forward with interest at the sound of the rich laughter tickle its way out of his throat.

They rolled onto the bed and she saw Karena's heeled feet push up on the mattress as he slid on top of her, her tiny g-string pushed down to her ankles. Karena kicked one of her ankles free of the underwear. Jasmine watched him kiss her with a passion completely unimaginable of the cruel lord she knew, his hands entwined in her hair. He groaned as he pulled himself up and slid inside her, and Jasmine heard her sudden, quick gasp of pleasure. She wanted to turn away, but couldn't.

"Oh I can't," he panted, "Oh I can't wait..." he collapsed into her, moaning, his face buried in her hair while she laughed, her hands caressing his back. "I'm sorry," he panted, and Jasmine reeled. If she hadn't had her hands on the rose quartz pillar, she would have fallen over. Did he just apologise? Karena twisted her head to him, and whispered something gently in his ear, trailing a finger down his cheek. Jasmine couldn't hear her words, but she saw the flash of Mozenrath's grin before Karena lifted her face to his and kissed him on the mouth. He responded, kissing her hard, trailing his lips down her chest and between her breasts, his fingers following with a gentle teasing she'd never have expected from the most sadistic man she'd ever met. Jasmine watched intently as he reached the soft mound between Karena's legs and flicked his tongue over the bright silver bar pierced through the hood of her clitoris. This time her gasp was sharper: she was already fully aroused from the previous encounter seconds earlier. Jasmine watched as the young sorcerer slid a finger into her, slowly, withdrew it, and slid a second one back in with his index finger, his lips tugging gently on her clitoris. Jasmine could see his mouth making quick, tender movements, his lips and tongue flickering rapidly, the tiny movements precise and expert. Jasmine couldn't help but marvel at his expertise, shocked to find her stomach tightening and a flood of warmth spreading between her legs as the new queen began coming in the mouth of Jasmine's most formidable enemy, her hands clenching the silk bed sheets, her glossy pink mouth opening and closing, her eyes tightly closed. Mozenrath climbed on top of her - again, already? - and fucked her hard between the legs, gasping and moaning, a trickle of sweat dripping down the side of his face.

"Ohhhh," he was moaning suddenly, staring into Karena's eyes, "Oh I'm coming again..." Karena stroked his face with her slender hands, smiling up at him. "Yes, come," she urged.

Jasmine turned away, suddenly mortified and mortified at second time at the fact that she was only becoming mortified now, at this late stage, but there was nowhere for her to run. She heard Mozenrath moan behind her, she heard the rustle of silk sheets, she heard the couple kissing and murmuring.

Forget Karena: who was the man in that bedroom? It wasn't the Mozenrath that Jasmine knew.

She scanned the hallway at her side. The shadows were growing against the eastern side of the citadel, crawling across the pink marble floor of the expansive bedroom and up the walls: the sun would soon be setting. Jasmine needed to escape. She'd never intended on seeing this: she'd only sneaked into the Citadel to see the woman of whom Genie was so very frightened. "No, Mozenrath! I need to have a bath!" Jasmine suppressed a gasp as she heard Mozenrath groan with amused, exaggerated exhaustion. Her heart flickered suddenly, skipped a beat. _Oh no they're getting up oh no oh no oh no!_ Where was the nearest bathroom? She was going to be spotted any moment now. Jasmine cast her eyes about desperately, hunched into the shadow of a single pillar directly opposite the large, low, circular bed. She couldn't believe what she'd done, the position she was now in. _No no no no no!_ Why had she come here, against Genie's advice? Why? Karena's heels clicked languidly onto the floor. Jasmine searched furtively for an escape route, prepared to run or fight or...or what? Maybe if she stayed right here they'd walk straight past the pillar to the hallway that had led Jasmine to this room and she could escape over the balcony. Maybe they'd both go to a bathroom and she could slip straight past them, dash down the staircase and out the door... oh, but the Mamluks! Jasmine needed to escape over the balcony, and for that to happen she needed to wait for Mozenrath and Karena to leave. Over the pounding of her heart, Jasmine heard a loud exhaling of breath from a male throat. There was more rustling: clothes were being rearranged. Jasmine risked a quick look behind the pillar. Mozenrath stood with his back to her, tying a sash around his waist. Karena had stood, her heels providing her with the height to reach him. She was very tall, then: although her heels were staggeringly high, Mozenrath was thirty centimetres taller than Aladdin and forty more than Jasmine. Karena kissed Mozenrath gently, and he swayed – actually swayed – in her arms. Jasmine saw the glossy, perfect lips move to his ear and suddenly Karena seemed to be staring straight at Jasmine. Jasmine inhaled sharply. _Here it comes..._ but Karena did not call out, or shout. She hooked her arms around Mozenrath's neck and whispered into his ear. Why bother whispering? There was nobody there. Jasmine felt another stab of fear plunge into her heart as she stared up at Karena's sparkling green eyes. Mozenrath's hands rested on that tiny waist.

"Hmm," Jasmine heard him breathe. _Is he sighing? Seriously?_

But then, a sudden stroke of luck! The young lord turned and walked out of the room, exited down the corridor and disappeared into the shadows. From a distance, Jasmine heard his footsteps recede against the inky blackness. Running water began spurting from somewhere, splashing into a deep pool. The bathroom. He'd gone to the bathroom. Now she just had to wait for Karena to leave too, and...

"You may come out now, Princess," Karena called softly. _Oh no. No, no, no._ Heels clicked rapidly over the marble floor. _No. No, no, no._ Jasmine looked up. And there she was. Karena. The most formidable woman in the world, according to Genie and apparently according to Mozenrath, if his previous actions could be judged as reflecting his feelings towards her, for only a truly powerful woman could have subdued him. Karena had thrown on a silk robe, but she'd left it open and Jasmine could see hard muscles etched into her abdomen beneath her perfect breasts, her pale skin brighter in the candlelight, her perfectly hairless body accentuating silver piercings in her nose, her nipples, her bellybutton and the bell bar piercing between her legs.

"Good evening, Jasmine," Karena said in her smooth, silvery voice.


End file.
